


Ghosts Under Rocks

by audreycritter



Series: Cor Et Cerebrum [43]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: British gentleman fleeing emotions, Difficult discussions, Gen, implied waffle house, tw: PTSD, tw: mention of canonical death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 07:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18311459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: Alfred Pennyworth is unflappable, except, of course, for when he isn't.Or, a story in which there is space for sorrow.





	Ghosts Under Rocks

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Ra Ra Riot's "Ghost Under Rocks."

The  _hskhskhsk_  of a scrubbing cloth comes from the kitchen, though Dev cannot see anyone in the well-lit space. He steps in, peering around the counter, and finds Alfred. The older man is in rolled shirtsleeves, kneeling on the tiles and scouring the floor with a rag.

“Hullo, Alfie,” he says.

There’s no answer.

Dev glances around the kitchen and notices the small bus bin next to the sink, with broken pieces of jam jar. He raps his knuckles on the counter and then goes around the island to crouch in front of Alfred. The cloth is still moving,  _hskhsk_ , back and forth over a single line of gray grout.

“Alfie,” Dev says gently. “Are you quite alright, then?”

The cloth stops and for a moment, everything is still.

Alfred looks up and quickly masks his surprise at finding Dev so close. He gives the tiles a final buff and then pushes himself up to his feet, and rises.

“Ah, Kiran. I didn’t hear you come in. I’m afraid you just missed me making rather a fool of myself. I fumbled an entire jam jar and it made quite a spectacle, I rather think you would have enjoyed it.”

Alfred rinses the rag while speaking, his back to Dev. He turns with a calm, schooled smile.

“Are you coming or going?”

“Neither, quite yet,” Dev says. “You fumbled a jam jar.”

“Oh, stop looking at me like I’m a senile old man. It slipped,” Alfred grumbles. “I’m not having tremors or lapses in memory or anything of the sort. Move your magnifying glass to the next specimen, if you will.”

Dev glances up at the place he knows one of the kitchen security cameras are hidden, flush with the recessed light.

“The camera caught it, yeah?” Dev asks, his grin teasing to mask his own lingering worry. Alfred does look fine and he’s not moving stiffly. It’s this house, it always has him assuming the worst whenever he finds someone close to the floor. “So. I could still watch it.”

“You used to be such a nice man,” Alfred complains, but there’s a hint of a smile on his own face. “I fear we’ve wholly corrupted you.”

“Oh, no, I’ve always been bloody awful, I just hid it better then. I didn’t know if I’d be invited back if I was an arse right off.”

“You’re staying for dinner, I presume?” Alfred finishes rinsing the larger pieces of glass and tips them into the recycling bin.

“If that’s an invitation, then I absolutely am,” Dev says. “But maybe I should hold all the delicate things for you while you cook.”

“Oh, sod off yourself,” Alfred mutters under his breath. More loudly, he adds, “It’s a rather good thing I’m fond of you.”

“Tea, tomorrow?” Dev asks. “I’m on call this evening so there’s a chance I’ll have to run.”

“Of course,” Alfred says. “Would you terribly mind getting the dry pasta from the pantry? Since you offered to help, that is.”

“I’m a doctor, not a cook,” Dev protests, stepping into the pantry anyway.

“If you’re going to butcher pop culture at me, I’m going to soliloquize you,” Alfred warns, from out of sight.

“Butcher? That was spot on,” Dev calls back.

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,” Alfred begins.

Dev stares at the boxes of pasta on the galvanized metal shelving. “The straight kind or the corkscrew bits?”

There’s a pause.

“Do you mean linguine or cavatappi? The linguine.”

Dev grabs the waxed box.

“Creep in this petty pace,” Alfred says, when he emerges.

“If you’re going to perform, you could at least do King Lear. Or the bit from Merchant of Venice, I rather like that one.”

“I beg your pardon. Did you purchase a ticket?” Alfred says, taking the pasta. “Beggars cannot be choosers, Kiran.”

“And  _I’m_  the arse,” Dev teases. “Go on, then.”

* * *

Dev yawns for the second time, covering his mouth and blinking.

“I’m so sorry. It turned into a sodding hell of a night.”

Alfred pours another cup of tea.

“It’s quite alright. We can cut things short if you need to sleep; you know the room is always open to you.”

Dev shakes his head and picks up the cup.

“I might, after. But we can finish. You’ve not told me your latest crossword drama yet.”

“I complained about Mr. Shortz one time, precisely once, and you will never let it—”

“It’s at least four times now, Alfie. The Times’ puzzle. The book.”

“That’s two, and the book was so grossly incompetent it could hardly be called a  _book_. But you tolerate that topic, not enjoy it. I suppose the thing really on your mind can wait, if you keep putting it off.” Alfie looks straight at him over the tea table and Dev twists his mouth into a scowl.

Then, the scowl fades.

Dev toes the rug with the tread of his shoe and thinks. There have been too many nights the past few weeks he’s found Alfred awake when he’s left the cave, sitting with tea or cleaning something that certainly could have waited until morning.

Or, just sitting, and doing nothing.

He has been putting it off, trying to decide how to approach it, because he’s almost certain it began the night Bruce was in bed shaking with fear toxin and mumbling about trash in the gutters.

A house full of detectives and they give him scraps of clues; it feels like a test, sometimes, one designed to sharpen his skills at interpersonal navigation. None of these witness interviews are ever ones he gets to walk away from.

“There is,” Dev says. “If you’re going to prod at me and not let me bide my time. The jam, yesterday.”

“Oh?” Alfred says. It’s immediately guarded though he’s trying not to show it. “I’m perfectly fine, Kiran.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Dev says, waving a hand dismissively. He takes a sip of tea. “Trust me. If I was bloody worried about that sort of thing, I would have shouted you downstairs for labs already.”

Alfred looks pensive but doesn’t interrupt.

“You didn’t think you were cleaning jam, did you?” Dev says, guessing.

Blood drains from Alfred’s face the same instant his ears flush red.

“There are times,” he says, the words strained, “it is utterly maddening how clever you are.”

Dev ducks his head and looks down into his tea and hopes Alfred doesn’t notice. His face stings with pin-prick needles beneath his beard, as if the words had physically struck him across the face. It’s instinct to hide and to feign that he isn’t hiding, so he puts more sugar in his cup. He takes his time stirring it.

“That’s a yes, then,” he says hollowly, over the silence that had fallen in the room.

“Kiran,” Alfred says, the word like brittle rust flaking into powder. It is a tone full of self-reproach and Dev doesn’t look up at him. “I’m terribly sorry, my boy. I’ve…that was…”

“Nothing,” Dev says, shaking his head and forcing himself to look up with a smile. “Bloody nothing. Don’t worry about it. I was poking about at sore spots.”

“Wholly unkind of me, none the less so for being thoughtless,” Alfred says firmly. “And I apologize.”

“It’s nothing,” Dev insists, until he catches the unwavering gaze, one that holds him frozen for a breath. It soothes the ache in his chest and the thudding behind his ribs. He swallows. “Alright. Pardon granted.”

“It was…” Alfred is staring into his own tea now, as if searching for answers. His voice is very quiet. “It was not jam.”

Dev waits.

“Look at the hour,” Alfred says. “It’s nearly time to fetch Master Damian from school. I’ll clear these things when I return, so don’t rush on my behalf.”

Dev knows a closing door when he sees one, and he frowns and digs the toe of his shoe into the rug again.

“I’m going to the lake this Tuesday,” he says, while Alfred stands. “I thought you might like to come with me. You’re rather overdue for a break.”

“Are you saying that out of a desire for my company, as a friend concerned I’m overworking, or as the family doctor?” Alfred asks, stacking things on the tray. His hands, wrinkled with age, are steady as he works and asks.

Dev doesn’t answer until Alfred looks at him expectantly.

“Yes,” he says. “Quite.”

Alfred’s expression only gives away a flicker of apprehension and anger, but he nods.

“Very well,” he says. “I’ll come, then.”

* * *

The sun is bright, casting glassy spears of white and shadow across the lake in late afternoon. Alfred has been tense since Dev picked him up after breakfast. The entire car ride to the lake house was rote small talk, and the radio, and a conspicuous absence of comfortable talking.

Dev had let it sit.

He’d unloaded a cooler into the lake house, filled his water bottle, knotted the laces on his boots, and said, “Cheerio, I’m off,” and had gone on a hike.

Dev had returned to the house to find cookies cooling on the counter and Alfred sitting in a chair, reading. He’d let him read, until five minutes ago, when he’d come back from a shower and sat in the opposite chair flanking the cold fireplace.

It’s only another moment before Alfred marks his place with a finger and asks mildly, “Pleasant hike?”

“Always,” Dev says.

“You’re discounting, I hope, the time you sprained your ankle.”

“I was trying rather hard to, yes,” Dev laughs. “None of the bad hikes count. That’s the trick. Good book?”

“It was the last time I read it,” Alfred says, setting it aside. “This time…well, to be perfectly frank, I’ve barely read it at all. I’ve gone over the last page a dozen times.”

“Oh?” Dev asks.

Alfred gives him a severe look.

“Kiran. Feigned ignorance doesn’t suit you.”

“I’m being sodding gentle, Alfie,” Dev says. “It softens my cunning strategies.”

“It might at that,” Alfred says, his expression distant. He licks his lips and clasps his hands, and then studies his fingers with a thoughtful frown.

“Would you care for a cuppa?” Dev asks, and Alfred shakes his head.

“You were right,” Alfred says, in a thin voice. “I thought it was blood. The other day, in the kitchen. I’d quite forgotten we’d had the tiles redone after the earthquake. The grout was stained before.”

“With Wayne’s blood,” Dev clarifies, a bit needlessly. It’s mostly an effort to show he’s paying attention, to let his tone convey his encouragement.

“Hm? Oh, yes. When is it ever not?” Alfred says, a little bitterly. His hand stretches out for his book, but he doesn’t pick it up. “Anyway, I’m sorry if I worried you. It was a moment of confusion, nothing more, and I’m certain exhaustion played a role.”

“You’ve not been sleeping well, yeah?” Dev asks, and he can see the moment Alfred realizes his misstep, in trying to place the blame on another actual problem. The older man’s hand withdraws completely from his book, to rest in his lap.

“Perhaps you have noticed the hours of the house are very irregular. Exhaustion of some kind is not uncommon,” Alfred says, but it’s a wispy smokescreen and doesn’t hold.

“Irregular, yes,” Dev counters. “But you’ve not been sleeping even when you might have been.”

There’s a furrow of frustration in the older man’s brow, and then it smooths out.

“You’ve been spying,” he says. “It shouldn’t surprise me.”

“Spying?” Dev exclaims. “Alfie, all I’m doing is bloody  _noticing_. You’ve been off for weeks. You can hardly expect me to not notice when you’re half the reason I’m ever about at all.”

“I suppose you even know when it began,” Alfred says wearily. “Ask your questions, then.”

“I’d rather you tell me, if you’re up to it,” Dev says, leaning forward a bit in the chair. “This isn’t about my curiosity, Alfie. I’m sodding concerned and I think I’m right to be. I’m not worried you’ll go off on a mad lark, but bloody hell, I don’t like seeing you moping about and miserable.”

“Have I been  _that_  obvious?” Alfred asks, a little startled. “Surely I haven’t been. I’m not in misery, Kiran, that’s rather dramatic. A few nights feeling off is hardly misery.”

“You thought the jam was blood,” Dev says. “And it wasn’t a fleeting misconception, either. You believed it for more than a minute, enough for me to call your name twice and go unheard. I know what a sodding flashback looks like. Don’t pretend I wouldn’t recognize one.”

“And the start of it, if you’re so observant?” Alfred says, all the tension of the entire day poured and packed into that one question with all its sharp-edged words. Dev sees more fear than fury in the older man’s eyes and he doesn’t look away.

“He cried about trash in the gutter,” Dev says plainly, and clearly.

Alfred flinches and lowers his gaze.

Dev drags his chair a few inches closer.

“I swear, I bloody swear, I’m not trying to be an arse. I’m not set on wounding you for the bloody hell of it.”

“I know,” Alfred says, in little more than a rasped whisper.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, then let’s not. I’ll write a script to help with the sleep and you can give it time. But it never goes beyond me if you want to chat, you know that.” Dev leans forward, elbows on his knees, and Alfred doesn’t lift his face.

“After…” Alfred says, and then he presses a hand over his eyes and Dev can track the tight swallow in his throat. His words are clipped when he says, “Let’s not.”

He stands abruptly, and the legs of Dev’s chair screech as he pushes his chair back quickly to give Alfred space. The older man doesn’t look at him once before walking out the door.

“Bloody hell,” Dev mutters under his breath, with the clenched sensation of nausea. He sits in the chair a long time, fighting back the conviction that he’s thoroughly mucked things up. It is not a winning fight. After a while, he gets up and makes a cup of tea for lack of anything better to do.

The hours pass slowly. He munches a chocolate biscuit and it tastes like ash; he considers going on another hike, and gives it up when he realizes how close it is to sundown. He’s not hungry enough for dinner, his appetite dashed by knowing he pushed too hard, too soon, and made Alfred more miserable as a consequence.

He checks twice for the car, fairly certain that Alfred wouldn’t just drive off but needing to look anyway. The car doesn’t vanish.

When the light through the windows takes on a distinct golden hue, the long and slanting cast of sun low in the western sky cut with shadows of mountain and pine, his worry wins out. It overrides his concern of making Alfred feel crowded or pursued. He steps out onto the deck and scans the land around the house.

Alfred is on the shore below the slope, facing the lake. Pale puffs of smoke rise from him. There’s a cigarette in his hand, a speck of orange-red heat between fingers as it hangs at his side. While Dev watches, silent, Alfred lifts the cigarette and takes a long draw, and exhales— the smoke billows up again.

He’s never seen Alfred smoke before. He’s not even quite sure where he got one— if it was in the house, or a pocket. It stirs unease in him, not knowing, and all the space between habit and old vice that is now a guarded blank.

Dev goes back inside.

He finds a book of puzzles and tries to focus, sprawled on the couch, and cannot. He keeps it open anyway, marking and erasing letters with a dull pencil from a kitchen drawer. The pink rubber eraser crumbs, smeared with graphite, dust his shirt when he brushes them off the page. He brushes those to the floor, where they vanish into the rug. He has the idle thought that he ought to vacuum them, and the next time he rubs a whole seven letter string off the page he gets up to do just that.

It’s fully dark the next time he goes outside, still fighting with himself over whether or not it’s too much coddling or an outright insult to remind Alfred that it’s getting cold. There’s a bench on the deck and he compromises on sitting there, to keep watch at the least.

The moon is a mere crescent and he’s left all but one security light off, so he hears Alfred’s treading steps up the path before he sees him. There’s the creak of old wood underfoot when Alfred climbs the deck stairs, and his expression, lit by the yellowed bulb above the door, is faintly startled to find Dev there on the bench.

For a moment, Dev thinks he’s going to go straight inside the house to cook or go up to bed without speaking, and that it will be months before they ever revisit the topic, if they ever do at all.

But Alfred stops beside the wooden bench.

“May I?” he asks.

Dev nods.

Alfred sits down beside him and then clasps his hands on his lap. One thumb rubs against the joint of the other, while they sit in the dark.

“I don’t…discuss these things,” Alfred says, quietly. “I apologize for my rude behavior.”

“It’s alright,” Dev says. He bumps Alfred’s shoulder with his own, and when it’s reciprocated, Dev scoots closer on the bench so their arms are still touching. Alfred doesn’t pull away.

There’s a long, soft, shaky exhale.

“I knew when I agreed to come that you would inquire, and I thought I’d braced myself accordingly, but, well. I am unaccustomed to being asked, and it caught me off my guard despite my preparation.”

“I’ve said it’s alright, then, Alfie,” Dev says gently. “Do you want to go in?”

Alfred doesn’t move. He hardly breathes, his arm against Dev’s rigid and unmoving.

“After Master Jason…left us,” Alfred says, in a voice low and flat. “Master Bruce was in something of a state. He did not, as you can imagine, handle it well. It was a nightmare come to life. Some things had improved before Bane arrived, but not everything. I think it was losing Mr. Kent that was the final blow. A son and a…a beloved friend, buried in the same year. He could not bear it.”

Dev says nothing. Even if he’d thought of words, the fiery knot of his stomach would have kept him from speaking.

“I nearly left him before that. I am ashamed to admit it, but it’s true. He had lost his son in a single blow, but I was…I was…”

Alfred puts one hand across his eyes and draws a breath through his nose, lets it out slow and even. He pulls his hand down and cups his own chin on his palm, then crosses his arms over his chest.

“I was losing my son a piece at a time, every morning he came home bloody and bruised. He was trying to die. I don’t know if he would have said it so plainly, but he was, and I could hardly bear to watch. Master Timothy helped as much as he could, of course, but when Mr. Kent fell, there was nothing to be done. Bane came to Gotham and I knew Master Bruce saw it as…not a way out, but as a final redemptive act. He blamed himself for everything, you know. He always does.”

“And Bane hurt him,” Dev says, knowing the medical details from the files if not the full story.

“Bane broke him,” Alfred corrects. “Bane broke into the house, dragged his body into Gotham, and dumped him in the street. It was…he…he…”

Alfred’s hand covers his eyes again and Dev shifts just a bit closer.

“Kiran,” Alfred says helplessly, the syllables choked. “I couldn’t begin to know how to fix him. I had a hell of a time keeping it from Master Timothy, the boy was so scared, and his trust in me was implicit. But when I saw him…I…we took an ambulance to pick him up and I was afraid to touch him. I didn’t know how it could do anything but make it worse.”

“I saw the scans,” Dev says gently, a reminder in case it helps. “It was a bloody lot to deal with, especially alone.”

“It took forever just to get him stable,” Alfred goes on, as if he hadn’t heard. “I had to leave him. I’ll forever be ashamed of that, that I left— I went upstairs and started making tea, without truly thinking. That’s when the blood got on the floor. It was dripping off my sleeves, there was so much, I hadn’t even noticed leaving a trail through the house.”

“Bloody hell,” Dev breathes. “Alfie.”

“I thought I’d lost him,” Alfred says, his voice and hands trembling now. “I thought…I was certain I’d brought him home to die, and I was so out of my mind I looked at the blood and thought,  _Well, that’s the last of it then_ , and God forgive me, I was relieved.  _Relieved_. I felt very calm about it. I thought,  _Well, he won’t suffer anymore, and I can bear it— I can fade quietly, at least, and he won’t be in pain anymore._  He was still breathing, downstairs. I’d worked for hours to make sure of it and that’s still what I thought, dropping my tea cup over his blood. What kind of father am I to…”

There’s a ragged sob and Alfred presses his face into his palms. A keening whine catches in his throat and Dev is off of the bench in an instant, crouching in front of Alfred with a hand on his knee.

“Alfie,” he says, insistently, his heart in two shredded halves. It feels the kind of torn that won’t ever fully mend. “Alfie, look at me.”

There’s a shake of head and another wretched sob.

“You aren’t a bad father, to have wanted him to be free from suffering. That isn’t…oh, sod it all.  _Alfie_ ,” Dev says, desperately, and he stands and leans to wrap his arms around the older man’s shoulders.

At first, nothing changes. Then, Alfred’s hands curl into Dev’s shirt and a wet face is pressed against his shoulder and Dev cups a hand under Alfred’s elbow and hauls him to his feet. He keeps him wrapped in his arms, folded against him, his cheek on the older man’s bent head while Alfred’s weeping pitches to an anguished groan.

“Shh,” is all Dev can think to say, rubbing circles on the narrow back. “He’s alright now. Whatever hell it was, you bloody made it through. He’s alright.”

Alfred’s frame always deceptively hides an impressive physical strength, but he feels impossibly frail to Dev while he’s shaking. On impulse, Dev presses a kiss to his temple, desperate to offer comfort. He knows, in a clinical part of his mind, that a breakdown isn’t properly  _bad_  as a part of the process, but that doesn’t make him feel much less heartbroken.

He gives up on phrases or words of any meaning. For a long time he’s just murmuring sounds if he makes any noise at all, keeping his arms tightly around the older man, as if he can hold him together that way. Alfred’s knees are bent and most of his weight is leaned into Dev, the only thing propping him up.

Dev knows he’s collecting himself because the weight shifts back onto Alfred’s own legs and there’s a tired sniff. He doesn’t let go quite yet, not until Alfred gently pulls away. He won’t look up at Dev, but takes his seat again, his face reddened.

“That’s why it stained,” Alfred says, wiping his cheeks with the base of one thumb. “I left the tea unmade and went back downstairs without cleaning it. I don’t think I went back up for two days.”

Dev kneels in front of him and ducks his head to catch Alfred’s reluctant gaze.

“Alfie. You’ve done nothing wrong. Not in being overwhelmed, not in your moment of hopelessness. You wanted your son well, yeah? Whatever that meant. You’re sodding wonderful, Alfie, you have to know that. I’ve failed terribly if you don’t. Wayne bloody adores you, and with good reason. You’re not reprehensible for having feelings in the midst of all that sodding disaster.”

“I’ve quite fallen apart on you. I told myself I wouldn’t,” Alfred says faintly. “I’m—”

“If you apologize, I’m throwing both of us in the lake,” Dev says sternly, looking up at him. “Don’t. It’s only fair, for the number of times I’ve stained your shoulder with snot. There are days I can’t quite function unless I’ve stood near you and had a good cry.”

“That’s hardly the same—”

“The lake, Alfie,” Dev warns. “It’s bloody frigid even now.”

Alfred takes in a slow breath and nods.

“I suppose I ought to thank you, Kiran,” he says. “I don’t know if…if it…”

“If you find it didn’t help, tell me, just bloody say something. I can still hunt a med that will help you sleep without too many nasty side effects. No one will even need to know,” Dev says.

“I’m so very tired,” Alfred confesses, rubbing his brow.

“Go sleep,” Dev says, patting his knee and standing. “I’ll manage dinner for tonight. We can eat late or wait for breakfast. Go sleep if you think you can.”

Alfred nods and stands, and then gives Dev a small smile.

“What ever would I do without you, Kirry,” he says.

“You wouldn’t have to buy quite so many sugar cubes,” Dev says seriously, putting a hand on Alfred’s shoulder to stop him from going inside right away. He hesitates, then kisses Alfred’s brow again. His mouth twists into a frown at the mild surprise—not upset— on Alfred’s face.

“I do love you, Alfie, I hope you know that. As much as I’ve loved anyone. And you raised a bloody good man.”

Alfred pats Dev’s cheek.

“Don’t start me off again,” Alfred says, a film of tears in his eyes. “I want to sleep and regain some semblance of dignity.”

“Go on,” Dev says, guiding him toward the door ahead of him with a gentle shove. “Sleep, clean up, and come mock my meager cooking skills. You’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Inside, Alfred climbs the stairs with trudging steps.

“Kiran,” he says at the top. He doesn’t turn. “You won’t…discuss this with Bruce.”

There’s no upward lilt but Dev knows it’s a question, not an order.

“What do you take me for, Alfie? A sodding gossip column?” he says, loud and humored. He adds, in a serious tone, “Of course not. I gave you my word and I bloody stand by it."

There’s a nod and then Alfred goes on.

Dev listens to the  _click_  of the door shutting. After a few minutes in the kitchen spent deciding that he’s still not hungry, he sits on the floor in front of the huge windows. He watches the silhouettes of trees shiver in the breeze. He’s guarded from the night chill by the timber beams and solid walls and plated glass, so when his fingers go numb with cold and his chest is tight with frigid ache, it feels like the house has vanished and betrayed him, left him exposed to the elements. It feels like a very, very long time before he breathes again, in time with the lapping water of the distant lake.

* * *

The sun is blazing across his field of vision when Dev blinks awake. He stares up for a second, trying to place himself. He realizes he’s looking at the joints where the window meets the slanted ceiling of the lake house. There are noises coming from the kitchen-- a fridge door opening and shutting, the scrape of a knife, the clinking of utensils, the beep of the oven.

He closes his eyes again, golden translucence spotted with spears and blurs of pinkish tangerine floating in his mind instead of the deep dark of sleep. He must doze off again, anyway, because the next thing he knows is a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Kiran,” Alfred says, softly.

“Mm’up,” Dev mumbles back, rubbing his eyes. “What.”

“The house does have beds,” Alfred says reproachfully. “You ought to have asked for help finding one, if it was proving too difficult a task.”

“Sod off,” Dev says, still mumbling. He sits up and looks around the living room, where he’d fallen asleep on the floor at some point during the long night, in some hour when he thought he wasn’t tired and wouldn’t ever sleep again. “S’morning?”

He meant to say something along the lines of,  _good morning, how’re you, then?_  but his brain and mouth were not yet fully cooperating.

“That is what we call the sun’s traverse through the visible sky in its earliest hours, yes,” Alfred agrees, from the kitchen. “I know some find it to be a baffling concept.”

“I know I look like an easy mark,” Dev says, scrubbing a hand against his face before he attempts standing, “but you could go easy on me. Perhaps I’ve a delicate soul in the mornings.”

“Kiran, you have a delicate soul every hour. Morning’s nothing to do with it.”

“I can’t bloody tell if that’s compliment or insult,” Dev grumbles, dragging himself to his feet. He feels stiff and sore; there’s a crick in his neck and he rolls his head trying to work it out. “Would you care to clarify.”

“I’ve made breakfast,” Alfred says. “There’s tea.”

“The magic word,” Dev says. He yawns and looks out at the cloudless, shining day. “Care for a hike today?”

“I could walk anywhere at all,” Alfred says. “Why I’d choose unpaved dirt, surrounded by weeds and stinging insects, merely to go in a circle, I’ve no idea.”

“So, yes,” Dev says.

“I’ve not said yes.”

“You can’t say no. I’ve a delicate soul. I couldn’t bear the rejection.”

Dev reaches around Alfred to snatch a hot piece of sausage off a platter and grins at the scolding look he gets.

“You’re an arse, Kiran.”

“Mhm,” Dev says. “That’s why I fit in.”

* * *

Stars, specks of glitter spilled across a sky, fill the expanse of heavens here away from the city glare. Dev leans on the railing, looking up at them, trying to piece out constellations he knows from pages and find them in the messy spread.

The day had grown hot and muggy and he’d fallen asleep again in the afternoon, in a bed, and though they’d had plans to return to Gotham in the evening Alfred must have chosen to let him sleep. He himself was asleep when Dev had woken, slipped down the stairs and out the door without shoes.

He’s absorbed in the sky when the door opens and the noise is jarring enough in the cricket-filled hum of night that he flinches, and stills. It’s only a second later that he relaxes, watching Alfred step out with his face already upturned.

“It’s lovely,” he says, leaning against the railing beside Dev.

“You think you can see them at the Manor,” Dev says.

“Quite,” Alfred says. “Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough. I’m off,” Dev says. The wind blows across the deck and he draws his shoulders up toward his ears, tugging his jumper more tightly around him.

Alfred hums. “Aren’t we all. It’s morning somewhere, I suppose.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve set us back,” Dev says. His eyes are still on the sky. “We’ll have to drive out before dawn.”

“You didn’t,” Alfred says. “I fell in early, as well. That’s two days we’ve missed dinner, you know.”

“Next, we’ll be drooling over raw deer and in a row about how to make fire,” Dev teases. “Wayne’s at least taught me to make spears.”

“Whatever on earth for,” Alfred asks, with a note of genuine surprise. “He’s not planning on…”

He trails off and shakes his head, a rueful smile as Dev says, “Preparation is–”

“–survival’s bedfellow, I know. Who do you think taught  _him_  that?”

“The telly,” Dev says, and Alfred’s socked foot kicks gently sideways at Dev’s own. Dev knocks it back. “Where all true wisdom is acquired. Well. We’re overdue for dinner, then. Fancy anything? I’ll cook, if you like, or try to while you grumble at me from the other room.”

“Hm,” Alfred says.

For a moment, they simply lean and stare at the stars.

“Shall we pack our bags and find an all-hours establishment to get a spot of something?” Alfred asks, finally. “There are enough of them in the city. We should have some luck.”

Dev looks at him, and feels like he’s got his feet on solid ground again after days without it. The unwavering surety back in Alfred’s tone and bearing turns the mire into rock.

“Bloody brilliant,” he says. “Just the thing.”

He looks up one more time, at the broad and sparkling heavens flushed by murky black, and then there’s a hand on his back rubbing slow circles between his shoulders. It suffuses him with warmth, through his chest and limbs, melting the frost of worry that had remained.

“Thank you, Kiran,” Alfred says evenly, as he lets his hand fall away. “You didn’t have to do this for me. I didn’t make it easy.”

“Nonsense,” Dev says, the light tone at odds with his serious expression. “It was exactly what I bloody wanted to do. Shall we go find sodding terrible American food?”

“Yes,” Alfred says, with a quiet smile. “Let’s.”


End file.
